The Fatal Choice
by Soul of Ashes
Summary: Amanda and Raziel snuggliness. What happens when they have an abandoned winter home all to themselves while the owners are away?


--Author's Notes--

It's a good day to write romance. Well...not exactly romance. I'd wondered if my first fanfic with Raziel from the LOK fandom would have gone differently if a couple of unnamed characters' feelings had been admitted earlier. But then I realized I'm no good at romance at all, thus why the story was a tragedy, and why my decidedly crappy sequel is getting almost no reviews (kudos to those who stick with me, though, I love you guys!! Ha, ha!)

So...I wrote this. It kinda goes with the first story, but follows an entirely different route which would never have happened in the original story unless Raziel and Amanda hooked up earlier on. Enjoy!

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_The Fatal Choice_

Outside of the deep cavern where Darius the vampire had built himself a formidable mansion underground in the mines, in the sloping snows where a human could see her breath if she just breathed a little, a crouched up figure was pawing around in the snow desperately, small mittens digging around in the white snows and overturning sticks and things underneath that. Finally the figure fell back into the snow bank and reclined for a few minutes. A large blue, thick hat covered the young woman's head and made a ridged impression in the snow, and a thick brown parka buttoned up around her almost to her knees. Snow pants covered her legs, tied securely over the tops of her thick winter boots.

Amanda peered up through the trees, her cheeks red from the cold and from crying. After a few seconds she focused her efforts on getting herself warm, and stood up. For about a three foot radius the snow appeared as if the earth ruptured by a miniature earthquake. She'd spent the last hour and a half digging through every inch of that snow, searching for something of great sentimental value. Of course, it was just her luck that she was probably looking in the wrong place and it was never to be seen again.

She dusted her hands of snow, which had begun clumping to the edges of her mittens. Her fingers were numb and that was never really a good sign. She pulled her gloves off and pulls her sleeves over her hands, then closed the sleeves from the inside to keep the warmth in. That'll do much better.

Amanda turned and saw another figure in the distance, perching on the top of a fallen pine and watching her. He must've been sitting there for several minutes. It took him a second longer to stand up and approach her.

"I'm sorry," he said without waiting for her to speak. "I don't know what you have lost, but it seems important. Is there anything I can do?"

"You could help me look for it," she replied, taking in his eyes. They were burning within from beyond that primal golden yellow, that eldrich fire that belonged only to the Soul Reaver. "But I'm too cold to keep looking, and I could never ask you to do something... humble like that. You just don't seem to be the type of guy who does manual labor."

"I've done worse, and suffered worse. So there's no need to worry." His hands came forward, resting on her shoulders. "Come back inside with me."

"I don't want to face Darius today. I'm sick of him looking at me, sizing me up... I can't hold a conversation on the phone like that."

Raziel's mouth tensed as he contemplated her plight. His eyes and mouth always had a way of communicating things so perfectly, especially when his jaw tensed and she could see his thoughts turning expertly in the motion of his hidden fire just behind his eyes. That particular way his muscles danced along his throat as he began to speak.

"I know of a place where we could go, though I give you no guarantee that it will be much warmer there than it is outside." He took her sleeve in his firm, three-taloned grasp, and began to lead her carefully over the rising and falling snow banks among the trunks of trees. It was nearly night, and the sky was always miserable and overcast with random sprinkles of snow every now and then. She couldn't see where the sun lie, but it was far away and wasn't doing much good for keeping her warm.

Powder white spotted the roofs of houses as soon as they reached the edge of her town, somewhere in upstate New York. It was her hometown, and though she didn't know all of the streets, she knew it well enough that they were close to the river where they had wandered into each other so long ago. She knew Raziel took long nightly wonderings sometimes after she fell asleep, and often left the mines during the day to wander among the humans as carefully as he could. So she trusted that he was leading her to a place he was quite familiar with, through a carefully disguised path that was actually very easy to follow. She could almost see his footsteps from the day before.

The young witch concentrated on the press of his talons around her arm. He didn't remove it yet, for he tried to avoid as much contact as possible. She knew it was only out of sheer politeness, and he was never cold toward her. Yet it boggled her that he never let her hug him for more than a few seconds, or hold his hand. And she wanted him to, you know, return whatever sparse affection she could give. She still had a lot more, too, that she didn't show...

They came to a thick tangle of bushes that blocked their view of anything beyond it. However, Raziel bent down in the shadows and crawled forward, utterly vanishing beyond the bushes. His head poked through, his black hair shimmering like fresh melted ink. He stretched out his hand. "Come on through. Do not worry. No one is here."

She crawled through, sliding along and grabbing his hand with her own naked one. She stood up in an enclosed back yard, tall wooden fence keeping everything private. There was a swimming pool with its winter cover, no doubt prepared fully for the cold. The back porch had all of its decor covered with white plastic, and would be removed when the cold spell would break with springtime.

She followed him up the steps, clearing her throat. "You sure this isn't... this isn't right, Raziel."

"It's no different than the Thanksgiving dinner I so graciously 'borrowed' for you." Raziel looked over his shoulder at her and assured her with a smirk that made his eyes brighten.

Amanda couldn't help but grin back at him. Then, slipping up to the sliding glass door, he reached one talon into the lock and turned it, giving it a good shake before he pushed it open. Inside was slightly colder than it was outside but the wind wasn't blowing.

Amanda immediately pushed past in search of the thermostat in hopes of raising the temperature. She prayed it worked. Before she could make another action, staring at the heater and hoping to make some kind of judgment about it rising from 10 below zero to a more manageable level, she felt a pair of arms sliding around her waist. She gasped before feeling herself relax, utterly absorbed in her own world that consisted of those powerful arms, able to crush stone if need be, her eyes slipping shut. She was so cold...

Later, she opened her eyes again and was very warm - almost painfully so. Her fingers ached so badly it made her eyes water to bend them. She immediately drew her attention to the man sitting near her. The sun had fallen and it was now very warm, all thanks to the heaters spewing warmth from every available crevasse. His hair glistened as if it were wet, but it wasn't. Without thinking she reached up to carefully brush her fingers over his cheek, as his hair was too far out of reach.

His lips quirked into a smile. It felt nice, to be touched. She had passed out from exhaustion, mainly. She worked too hard with so little sleep Raziel often wondered how she could even function for a human being. But when her fingers brushed his cheek, he reached up instinctively to clasp her frozen fingers. He had left her side only once since he had put her to sleep on the large comfortable couch with a pale pink blanket from a hallway closet, and once was enough.

"Are you well again?" he asked very softly. God, her skin was so cold.

"Good enough," she mumbled. Her eyelids felt so heavy... "Guess I gave you a scare."

"Go no further. I understand." He brushed his hands over her stomach through the blanket, his nose wrinkling a little. But one question begged to be asked. "Does it hurt you?"

"Oh, it can be painful, let me tell you. Why do you think I scream at Darius to get me painkillers all the time?"

He laughed. "I meant your hands." He took her hand in both of his and gently began to knead the feeling back into them. He lost himself in the paleness of her skin, how the veins traced underneath her pulsating flesh. It gave him chills. He had no bloodthirst now, but looking at her skin made him remember how it felt to want something so precious.

Her look of pain from his first ministration began to dissolve into one of pleasure. Her head sank back into the pillow he found, and he lifted himself to sit on the edge of the couch while he massaged her hands. Her throat throbbed a little bit from increased blood pressure. It didn't attract him, at least not in the way it would attract a bloodthirsty vampire. Instead he saw her as he would see any human, but this was a human he knew. He could trust her. She trusted him now and her every breath had been dedicated to helping him get home for the past few months.

Her fingers twitched between his, and she slipped her grasp around his and pulled him closer. Her eyes were open. The chocolate green depths made him forget how cold it was outside and how warm her touch had become. He traced a finger along her palm carefully and Amanda's lips pursed a little, sucking in a breath through her nose. He wished he could take the sadness away from her face.

Raziel reached into his coat pocket. He produced something from it, and offered it to her. "I found this," he explained hoarsely, thoroughly bewildered at how her eyes widened and her throat worked.

"You found something, alright!" She snatched it as politely as she could and stared at the object, made of paper, a picture. Her mom was wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a noogie while the mystery person behind the camera took the picture. Amanda looked younger, less troubled, and positively angry that her mother was embarrassing her so much. But in her eyes she saw that she was happy.

"Thanks," she whispered, and bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed.

Raziel smiled tentatively, not sure if her response warranted one in the first place. She tucked the picture into her jeans, apparently knowing better than to carry it around in her jacket pockets. Speaking of jacket, it was laying somewhere aside on another chair along with her snow pants and her boots on the floor by the heater to dry.

To be perfectly honest, the Soul Reaver found it unfathomably uncomfortable removing her thick bunched up clothing. It wasn't hard once he took off her clunky boots, which could crush a man's fingers into dirt seeing as how hefty they were.

He made sure she was comfortable, with a pair of pillows from a nearby bedroom to cushion her skull. Amanda took hold of one pillow, fluffy and thick, pressing her face into it and breathing deeply. Its clean smell painfully pulled an image of her own apartment with her mom to mind, made her eyes sting, and her throat clench.

She felt a hand on her back, moving around a little bit in some small attempt to console her. She smiled, putting the pillow down, and leaned against him, as he was sitting directly next to her. He scooted up onto the cushions and sighed, shaking his head from side to side, a meditative expression settling comfortably over his features like a well-worn shirt.

"Do you want to go home and see her?" he asked calmly. "Will it make you feel better?"

"It might make me think twice about all of this," she replied. "But I want to, so badly. I do." She sighed, feeling the weight of loneliness where her mother used to be stay heavily on her heart. She was a mama's girl, and she didn't hide it. "I miss her. Of every human being on the face of the planet, I knew I could always trust her even if I didn't always agree with her judgment."

Raziel could only speculate before. Now he began to see the picture more clearly. "I understand. I began to miss the structured life of a lieutenant not long after I was destroyed. But here I am now. Do you trust me?"

"That's a retarded question."

"Amanda," he sighed.

"Yes, I trust you. I trust you completely. Not as much as my mom, but pretty damn close to it." She brushed her hands through her short hair, smirked and began to situate herself on his lap. "There. Now, old man, read me a bedtime story!"

Raziel laughed. "Aren't you too old for that sort of thing? I thought I've told you every story I could about my life."

"You never tell me what you dream about when you sleep."

At this, Raziel immediately fell silent and thoughtful, looking away with that spark of light just beyond her awareness. "The dead don't dream."

"Only the damned," she reminded him. "Tell me. Do you still carry some guilty conscience?"

"I do not!" Raziel quickly answered, wrapping his arms carefully around her, hoping to do it secretly and avoid notice. But she did notice, and nuzzled her face against his chest with a hapless contented sigh. "Damn you. Maybe."

"A little?"

"Perhaps. But don't bring it up with the others."

"Jesus, Razzle, of course I wouldn't tell the Fang Gang!" She looked up, ignorant of her quick prattling of the name, and chewed her lip dubiously. "What is it?"

"I have--" The wraith struggled, his talons nervously scraping against each other, as if massaging the tension out of his muscled hands. "I have feelings," he finished at last, in one relieved gust of breath that somehow didn't convince Amanda that he was done.

The young woman stole a breath before tracing her fingers down the solid, perfect line of his jaw. His skin felt like stone, but felt the tremor of life underneath her fingertips as she brushed along his throat, pulsing strangely under his skin. She wondered what kind of blood flowed in this strange creature's veins... and what kind of man he was.

"Then express them," Amanda answered quietly, shutting her eyes as her body moved her forward and bade her lips to brush against his, which felt like cool silk that transformed and trembled slightly before parting. Something that tasted good, yet alien, passed over her lips once before she responded in kind, her hands meeting at the base of his neck and pulling herself up more, while his own congregated at the small of her back.

Raziel had no idea what to expect. It soon became clear that none of his expectations mattered, and it was only Amanda that was the fulcrum of his existence. The greatest challenge was knowing what to do, but his desire expressed itself plainly with every small breath that fanned his cheek and graced his cold skin with the warmth of life that flowered like a river inside her, spreading through her veins and nourishing her body; that invisible intangible essence that science could not prove, nor modern physics explain.

He breathed in carefully and felt her weaken slightly, an airy sensation settling in his chest and throat. Her soul briefly fled the safe warm cocoon of her flesh and lingered between his spirit and hers. He shuddered as a passing fire streaked down his arm where the Reaver itself rested, aroused by the soul so near and so dear to Raziel's heart.

Without his bidding the soul-devouring monstrosity uncoiled itself from him. He pulled his arm clear of her in time and watched out of the corner of his eye the weapon boiling and twining itself around his flesh, rendering a green glow on the couch and the floor, and on Amanda's face.

Their lips had parted and she lay on his chest, short-breathed but aware that the Reaver was there. Her eyes fixated on the wraith blade, breathing a little faster before swallowing with difficulty.

A look of shame evolved on Raziel's face. Amanda looked up after a second and frowned, sitting up slowly and taking his other hand. "I don't care about that sword," she said. "But as long as it's apart of you, I'm not afraid of it."

"It doesn't matter," Raziel answered, somewhat distraught with emotion. Then he began to squeeze her hand, looking at her, in the glow of the Reaver and his eyes pained. He stroked her knuckles with his thumb again. "I meant to tell you this one important fount of knowledge, that _my_ soul is always yours."


End file.
